- The Hidden Decline of the American Empire http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176426/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_the_hidden_meaning_of_american_decline/#more 11 comments politics
- It’s May 2001 and the Atlantic Monthly has just arrived in the mail. I’m tantalized by the cover article. “Russia is finished,” the magazine announces. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176292/tomgram%3A_william_astore%2C_back_in_the_ussr/#more 6 comments russia
- Trump's Future Piggy Bank, Our Country? http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176192/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_trump%27s_future_piggy_bank%2C_our_country/#more 4 comments politics
- The Decay of American Politics - As candidates, they are merely exploiting a situation -- one relying on intuition and vast stores of brashness, the other putting to work skills gained during a life spent studying how to acquire and employ power. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176172/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_pseudo-election_2016/#more 5 comments politics
- The Collapse of the Old Oil Order - The Coming World of "Peak Oil Demand," Not "Peak Oil" http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176134/ 4 comments geopolitics
- Nomi Prins, The Big Money and What It Means in Election 2016 - That said, it could all go awry for the money-class and wouldn’t that just be satisfying to witness -- the irony of an election won not by, but despite, all those billionaires and corporate patrons. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176097/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_the_big_money_and_what_it_means_in_election_2016/ 3 comments politics
- It’s a $cam! The American Way of War in the Twenty-First Century. The war system of this era seems to function remarkably like a monumental scam, a swindle, a fraud. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176068/ 6 comments politics
- Tomgram: Rory Fanning, Why Do We Keep Thanking the Troops? http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175912/ 4 comments politics
- Investing in Junk Armies: Why American Efforts to Create Foreign Armies Fail http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175907/ 6 comments politics
- The Italian Job - How the Pentagon Is Using Your Tax Dollars to Turn Italy into a Launching Pad for the Wars of Today and Tomorrow http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175755/ 46 comments italy
- Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Why National Security Has Nothing to Do With Security - It Is a Wonder We Are Still Alive http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175877/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky,_why_national_security_has_nothing_to_do_with_security/ 3 comments politics
- How the U.S. Created the Afghan War -- and Then Lost It http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175837/ 4 comments worldevents
- The Special Ops Surge: America’s Secret War in 134 Countries http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175794/tomgram:_nick_turse,_secret_wars_and_black_ops_blowback/ 6 comments politics
- American Jihad 2014: On the New 'National Security State' Fundamentalists. Put it all together and what you have is a description of a militant organization whose purpose is to carry out a Washington version of global jihad, a perpetual war in the name of the true faith. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175789/ 4 comments politics
- "The Great American Class War: Plutocracy Versus Democracy" by Bill Moyers http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175783/ 157 comments politics
- Bill Moyers: The Great American Class War | We are this close -- this close! -- to losing our democracy to the mercenary class. So close it’s as if we’re leaning way over the rim of the Grand Canyon waiting for a swift kick in the pants. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175783/tomgram%3A_bill_moyers%2C_covering_class_war/ 72 comments politics
- Get ready for the housing bubble. "Over the last year and a half, Wall Street has amassed an unprecedented rental empire, snapping up foreclosed Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, brick-faced bungalows in Chicago, Spanish revivals in Phoenix..." http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175777 14 comments economy
- Get ready for the housing bubble. "Over the last year and a half, Wall Street has amassed an unprecedented rental empire, snapping up foreclosed Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, brick-faced bungalows in Chicago, Spanish revivals in Phoenix..." http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175777 5 comments politics
- "The Data Hackers: Mining Your Information for Big Brother" by Pratap Chatterjee -- "Big Bro is watching you. Inside your mobile phone and hidden behind your web browser are little known software products marketed by contractors to the government that can follow you around anywhere." http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175757/ 9 comments technology
- Surveillance blowback: Obama's expanding surveillance universe http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175724/tomgram%3A_alfred_w._mccoy%2C_obama%27s_expanding_surveillance_universe/?utm_source=tomdispatch&utm_campaign=f7fb1e61ac-td_mccoy7_14_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1e41682ade-f7fb1e61ac-308885989#more 21 comments politics
- The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire: Four Scenarios For The End Of The American Century By 2025 http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175327/ 15 comments politics
- Welcome to the (Don’t Be) Evil Empire. "Finally, journalists have started criticizing Google, now the world’s 3rd-largest company in market value. The new round of discussion began even before the revelations that the tech giants were routinely sharing our data with the National Security Agency..." http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175717/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_how_to_act_like_a_billionaire/ 4 comments politics
- Homeland Security has outspent the New Deal: "Imagine a labyrinthine government department so bloated that few have any clear idea of just what its countless pieces do. Billions of tax dollars disappear into it annually, black hole-style, since it can’t pass a congressionally mandated audit." http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175655/ 3 comments politics
- How the Wisconsin Uprising Got Hijacked: Why Electoral Politics Sold Out the Popular Uprising in the Badger State -- and Why It’s Not All Over http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175556/tomgram%3A_andy_kroll%2C_how_the_wisconsin_uprising_got_hijacked/ 13 comments politics
- Looting the Poor: Credit companies, payday lenders, have become loan sharks; charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When topped with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year, which is perfectly legal in many states. http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175543/ 95 comments politics
- Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue | Homelessness is not a side issue unconnected to plutocracy and greed. It’s where we’re eventually headed -- every debt-loaded college grad, out-of-work school teacher, and impoverished senior -- unless this revolution succeeds. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175457/tomgram%3A_barbara_ehrenreich%2C_homeless_in_america/ 10 comments politics
- Let's cancel 9/11 http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175437/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_tear_down_the_freedom_tower/#more 3 comments reddit.com
- "Can you imagine?" asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate. "They arrested a homeless man in a homeless shelter for being homeless?" http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175428/ 10 comments politics
- War Without Humans --- Human role already in decline. Role of drones and robots will only grow. But what happens if we get computers to assess threats and calibrate responses? Could it even be a good thing? http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175415/ 16 comments worldnews
- Oilquake in the Middle East. The price of gas at the pump is now averaging $3.65 a gallon in California and has already edged up to $4 in San Francisco and Chicago. Nationwide, it’s at $3.38, a 20-cent rise in the last week (six cents last Friday alone). http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175362/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_oilquake_in_the_middle_east/ 28 comments reddit.com
- Those rich bastards knew what they were doing and still sold homes to all those poor people you know because who gives a crap about them http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175326/tomgram:_andy_kroll,_how_the_oligarchs_took_america/ 3 comments reddit.com
- “The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.” http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175225/tomgram:_alfred_mccoy,_afghanistan_as_a_drug_war__/ 8 comments worldnews
- "There are more African Americans under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. Crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years." http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175215/tomgram%3A_michelle_alexander%2C_the_age_of_obama_as_a_racial_nightmare/#more 46 comments politics
- The Commercials Are the Super Bowl: "The ads tell us who we are and where we are going." http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175200/ 3 comments politics
- Arundhati Roy: "The average cost for winning a House seat in 2008: almost $1.4 million." Is democracy melting? http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175119 4 comments politics
- "That's 3,300 lobbyists working on the single issue of health-care reform (3 times the number of defense lobbyists). So far this year, $263 million (or more than one million dollars a day) has been shelled out just for lobbying health-related issues." http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175114/andy_kroll_the_washington_influence_machine? 12 comments politics
- Will Israel Attack Iran? http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175058/roane_carey_will_israel_attack_iran_ 9 comments politics
- Why neither the US nor Israel will attack Iran http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174953/why_cheney_won_t_take_down_iran 4 comments reddit.com
- The Pentagon's Stealth Corporations http://www.tomdispatch.com/post174948/nick_turse_the_pentagon_s_stealth_corporations 2 comments reddit.com
- Baghdad to Bush: You Have 14 Months to get hand out of oil barrel & get out http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174853 9 comments reddit.com